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| ©EPA |
| Prof. Schneider [left] and Dr. Carsten Dorgerloh, of Microsoft, hold two facsimiles of the papyrus Ebers (circa 1550) and a paper of the Codex Sinaiticus (313) at the library of the University of Leipzig |
The Codex Sinaiticus is a complete transcription of Christian scriptures in Greek, written by scribes around 350AD. Together with another work, the Codex Vaticanus, it is considered the oldest known Bible in the world.
From Thursday, high definition images of the Codex will be available online to all as the first part of a project led by the British Library comes to fruition.
According to the library, the Codex is "a treasure beyond price".
"Within its beautifully handwritten Greek text are the earliest surviving copy of the complete New Testament, and the earliest and best copies of some of the Jewish scriptures."
More than 100 pages of the Bible will go online on Thursday, including 67 from the British Library and dozens from the University of Leipzig.
Within the next year pages will be added to the Codex website as digitisers scan more of its intricately inscribed vellum sheets.
Since it was discovered in Egypt more than 150 years ago by a German scripture expert, pages from the Codex have found their way to London, St Petersburg and Leipzig.
The remainder is still held by St Catherine's monastery in Sinai, Egypt, where scholar Constantine Tischendorf unearthed it in 1844.
Tischendorf returned with parts of the Codex to Leipzig and then presented Russia's Tsar Nicolas II with much of it in 1869.
Half a century later Josef Stalin, the Russian dictator, sold 694 pages to the British Library. The entire Codex comprises 1460 pages.
In 2005, a £650,000 digitisation project was launched to reunite the far-flung sections of the Codex.
Now, according to Ulrich Johannes Schneider, Leipzig's library curator, "more than 100 pages, those from Leipzig and 67 from the British Library, will be available online at www.codex-sinaiticus.net."
There is much scholarship regarding biblical texts. The Codex Sianaticus is a relatively recent find as part of the so-called minority text tradition that was ignored by the bible translators of the Reform era. See:
Pinto, Chris (2010). Lamp In The Dark:Untold History of the Bible ~ FULL FILM (2010)
[Link]
Uploaded by amy2x on Mar 3, 2011
[Link]
In his documentary, Pinto states that Codex Sianaticus contains more changes to the manuscript than any document in Biblical history. He further states that Tischendorf himself claimed that “there were some 14,800 corrections done on the manuscript.” Dr. Juan Garces , Curator, Codex Sinaiticus Project, British Library, London, commented regarding that figure “it sounds about right”. Dr. Scot McKendrick, Head of Western Manuscripts, British Library, London, then states that “Codex Sinaiticus is the most corrected Greek manuscript of the scriptures.”
(Pinto, documentary on Bible at 2:49:30)
See also books by Dean John W. Burgon.